Olympic consultant forecasts 5% increase in £31m turnover

Nov 8 2008 by Karen Dent, The Journal

A CONSULTANT engineering firm which is creating the London 2012 whitewater rafting course is predicting its £31m annual turnover will rise by around 5% despite the economic slowdown.

Newcastle-based Cundall, which has 15 offices in eight countries and specialises in environmentally-friendly civil engineering projects, is working on a number of schemes in the North East and worldwide.

It is the consultant engineer on the Eldon Square development and is working on the PFI for schools project in South Tyneside and Gateshead.

In addition to the Olympic whitewater rafting scheme at Broxbourne, the company is also working on the south stand of Twickenham stadium ahead of the 2012 games.

Cundall partner Tomas Neeson said: “The slowdown has not affected us desperately at the moment. We can’t say the slowdown won’t affect us but our workload, particularly in the North East, is long-term projects. Eldon Square is running until 2010 and the South Tyneside and Gateshead schools project runs until 2016.”

The business, which was founded in Newcastle in 1976, employs 120 people in the city and 480 worldwide.

“In the last five to six years, we’ve had a hefty expansion to Australia and several other countries, then Birmingham and Manchester opened,” said Mr Neeson. “We have spent a lot of effort on our overseas development and the Manchester and Birmingham offices. The next five years will see us consolidate on that.”

The business, which was a new entry in The Journal’s Top 250 this year at 239, is also working to recession-proof itself by broadening its portfolio of work.

Mr Neeson said: “We have sectionised our business, we have identified areas we should be experts in such as healthcare, education or retail and leisure. There are eight or nine major sectors.”

Cundall was one of the pioneers of energy efficiency building and worked on one of the first pilot projects to build low-energy hospitals.

It was appointed as consultant and mechanical services design engineers for Wansbeck General Hospital in 1986 and was tasked with creating a hospital that reduced energy consumption by 40%. The hospital was named Green Building of the Year 1993. It is the structural and civil engineer on Newcastle’s Cobalt Business Park, which involved advising on issues as cycle ways and the diversion of bridle paths and public right of ways.

And despite the economic slowdown, Cundall is continuing to recruit staff, using the opportunity to work abroad as well as in the UK to attract the best people to the business.